Caravan of Courage, VHS, CBS/Fox Video, Mayco A/S, Norway 1986

This is a Norwegian rental tape of Caravan of Courage, released by Norwegian distrbutor Mayco in 1986. This film goes by many names. "The Ewok Adventure" is what the title card on the film itself says. Outside the US it is mostly known as "Caravan of Courage - An Ewok Adventure". In Norway the video boxes used the title "Caravan of Courage - The Ewok Heroes "(translated), while the title card on the film is subtitled "Caravan of Heroes" in Norwegian. The original Norwegian rental tape from 1986 features the film in the original 4x3 aspect ratio, in English with Norwegian subtitles. Ahead of the film is a trailer for The Empire Strikes Back, while a Return of the Jedi trailer appears after the end credits. All rental tapes at the time came in so-called "Big box" covers. I left the rental shop sticker on, to document part of the provenance of this tape. I'm including photos of two versions of the tape label. Each tape had a dedicated serial number, making all the labels unique, but the layout changed over the years as well. Mayco, the distributor, enforced a strict return policy on rental outlets, forcing them to return the tapes once the lease was over. During the course of a rental tape's lifetime, it would be returned to Mayco one or more times before being sent to a new rental outlet. After a few years Mayco updated their label template to include new inventory numbers and the return date (You can see that my second tape here was to be returned in July 1995, indicating the expected shelf life of these tapes). The new labels were usually applied on top of the old ones and most of the time you can see the original label shine through. When you come across a tape with the original label, it means that tape has never been in for updating at the distributor. You'll note the sticker spanning the front, spine and back of this release. With the advent of home video in the early eighties, the industry was unregulated and quickly became associated with proliferation of violent and pornographic materials. In 1987 the Norwegian government started requiring distributors to submit every release for classification and registration in the so-called Video Register ("Videogramregisteret"). Tapes not carrying the Video Register emblem and unique registry number could not be legally rented or sold. The sticker covering the front, spine and back of rental tapes was applied to every existing release to comply with the rule. The stickers were usually clumsily applied, and covered up the artwork. Finding a copy without this sticker is very rare. Unfortunately the glue used for these stickers is particuarily tough, making it almost impossible to remove after all these years.